Government ignored our advice to stop maize exports-FRA

A highly placed source from the Food Reserve Agency (FRA) has revealed that the government made a mistake to allow exportation of maize against the agency’s and other stakeholders advice.
The FRA insider told the Zambian Watchdog that it was unfortunate that the government was now blaming the opposition over the meali meal shortages.
“The country is experiencing this mealie meal shortage because there’s a major shortage of maize, many stakeholders including us from FRA advised the government that the maize from the past farming season was not enough and they needed to put measures to stop the private sector from exporting the maize but they never listened. Look now we have a mealie meal shortage rocking the whole country and now after realising their (government’s) mistake they want to push the blame somewhere to gain political mileage from unsuspecting Zambians, this is pure foolishness on their part,” revealed the source.
The source further added that even the solar milling plants that the President is advocating for will not have sufficient maize to work on despite it being a good thing. Meanwhile, a check by Zambian Watchdog in Chingola on Thursday afternoon confirmed that Shoprite and Pick n pay continued with empty shelves forcing residents to buy the commodity from the black market at K130 to K140 for a 25 kg bag.
For some weeks, Zambia has been experiencing shortages of the staple food but the government has kept on assuring people that there is enough maize in the country.